


Remembering the Core

by brightephemera



Series: Ruth!verse [6]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2016-06-21
Packaged: 2018-07-16 12:23:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7268065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightephemera/pseuds/brightephemera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Quinn shares war stories with his Lord.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remembering the Core

March, 11 ATC – 4 months before the confirmation of the Wrath

_Deep space_

Hyperspace, sarlacc-like, swallowed down the Fury. It would be some time before it disgorged them again.

Ruth looked around the bridge. It was late. The muffled sounds of living had quieted from the holo room. She wanted to stay at watch on the bridge - well, more accurately, Quinn wanted to stay at watch on the bridge and Ruth wanted to stay with Quinn. Their time between Baras’s commands had been kept busy by Quinn’s suggestions, and the busyness was nice. Now, a few hours off. It was all the vacation she needed.

There were two steps down from the pilot’s seat to the lowest level. Ruth beckoned. “Quinn. Over here.”

“Ruth?” He hardly hesitated at all on the address. Maybe that was a silly mark of intimacy, but it was a satisfying one.

“Just sit,” she said. He did so, stiffly, on the uppermost step, and Ruth settled on the floor, leaning back. He caught her shoulders. She trapped one arm and hooked it around her neck, resting her chin near his elbow.

“Tell me about the war,” she said. “The old one.”

“What is there to say? We fought. We prevailed. Strategists of some stripe chose to settle rather than pressing the advantage that Darth Baras had secured for us.”

She kissed his arm, or at least the thick uniform sleeve on it. “You’re still angry about that.”

“I have no feelings whatsoever on the matter, except as it affects the Empire’s wellbeing today.”

“I see.” He would maintain that to the death. Did he believe it from saying it so much? But that wasn’t the point today. “Were you in many battles before Druckenwell?”

“Several,” he said. “Over the course of several years seven full-scale engagements, twelve offensive actions, and an arguable eighteen skirmishes.”

Something in the way he said it...”You remember every one, don’t you. In detail.”

“I was paying attention, Ruth.” As if to soften the words he kissed her hair. 

“Did you fight in the Core Worlds very much? I mean, Republic territory?”

“We pressed their frontier. The deepest incursion prior to the Coruscant strike was on Duro. The population was beyond restive, we had no space support for a day and a half’s travel. It was five Republic corvettes and a cruiser against our five frigates. Admiral Dace Vorhek against Commander Roh Hogen. That battle was the origin of the Vorhek Maneuver, which while tactically brilliant was insufficient against our forces.”

“Insufficient? But you were outnumbered.”

“And practically evenly matched, tonne for tonne.” Quinn’s free hand slid a little on Ruth’s shoulder. “He was innovative, but he underestimated Roh Hogen. And his subcommanders.”

“Including you?”

“Including me,” said Quinn, not bothering to hide his satisfaction.

“What were the stars like?”

“My lord?”

He always did that when startled. She let it pass. “The stars. Outside. You were by a Core world, it must have been spectacular.”

“I confess I wasn’t looking very closely. They were bright.”

“Like Alderaan?”

A pause. Light and shadow chased one another through the bridge.

“There has never been anything like Alderaan,” said Quinn.

Ruth set her hands on the arm wrapped around her neck and turned a little. “What does that mean?”

“Alderaan was when I knew,” he said. “When that animal hit you, when you fell...I knew then that I needed you. That, if you lived, my life was to be tied to yours. That I must never, ever fail you again.”

“You’ve never failed me.”

He nuzzled her hair. “Tactically brilliant,” he murmured ruefully, “but insufficient against some forces.”

“Mostly just brilliant,” she said. “Do you miss it? The life I took you away from? The chain of command, running a ship, ordering your own troops for your own plans?”

“No.”

It was clear and complete. She twisted around, eyebrows high. She scanned his face in the fitful light. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

She slid free of his arms, stretched out up and down the steps. “I’m glad,” she said. “I know this isn’t really what you went into service for, but...I hope it’s good?”

He leaned down over her, succeeding in minimal touching of the floor. “I have no regrets,” he said quietly, and kissed her. She was getting better at remembering which way was up when he did that, but it gripped her in a deeper way, too, more every day. “No regrets.”


End file.
